THE HOWLING

Not always a good girl

   I'm going to continue the story in a linear way, and what happened next was meltdown, because ignoring emotional baggage never really works for long.  In this case, it was the howling that started unpacking it for me.  
   You wouldn’t think so, since I love the sound of coyotes, but the the wild noise of a free-roaming pack is very different that the piteous howling of a puppy who doesn’t want to be in a crate. Coyote song invites me to be wild.  Puppy cries call up abandonment and entrappment.
     Our puppy, still unnamed, would go into her crate happily enough with a treat, but as soon as we went to our room and turned off the light, the howling began.  This puppy wasn’t about to suffer in silence.  
     I’v read that the sound of a baby crying is the emotional equivalent of a jackhammer, and I knew that was true.  Once, when my son was an infant, I’d tried to let him ‘cry himself out.’  I lasted about fifteen minutes, and never tried it again.  The sound of the puppy’s distress had the same effect on me, but I didn’t know what to do about it.   
     We were crate training her, which is good for housebreaking, and also would allow Photon to roam freely at night.  He was already ticked off, sticking to the circus room - a no-puppy zone - all day, and glaring at us whenever we approached him.        
   “She’ll be fine,”  Steve told me.  
   “Will she cry all night?”  I demanded.
   “Probably not,”  he said.  He rolled over and went to sleep.  I pressed a pillow over my ears and tried to do the same.
    I don’t know how long the howling lasted.  Twenty minutes?   Twenty hours?   At some point I dissolved into weird dreams about my father.  I was woken by more whining, but Steve got up and took the puppy out, then climbed back into bed.  More howling, more weird dreams, and then more whining. It was not quite six a.m.  Time to take her out again.

     The first three nights of the puppy’s presence were all exactly like that, and with each one I grew more miserable, more acutely disturbed by the noise rather than habituating to it as Steve said I would.  The dreams about my father continued, unpleasant recurrences of his illness and death.  I’d wake more miserable than the night before, and after Steve left for work, I’d bring the puppy out to the yard. 
      I’d take a post with my coffee on one of our many sitting rocks while she rolled about on the grass.   She especially liked the plastic buckets our plants and shrubs came in, and she’d stick her head in them and run around in blind circles, then fall down and wiggle out to chase them again.
     “Buckethead,”  I muttered.  “My puppy is a buckethead.”
      Objectively, I knew she was really, really cute, especially when she ran around with a bucket on her head.  However, her crying, the dreams, all the demands, had unloosed something unpleasant in my emotional drive, and I felt awful about myself for feeling that way. 
     Instead of doing what I knew I should do - lean into the feelings and figure out their origin - I tried to scold myself out of it.  I’d better snap myself out of this, I told myself.  I’m a smart woman who has lots of good things, and no right to feel this way.  None of that got me anywhere, but I kept at it, and kept feeling worse as a result.  
     While the nightly howlings unearthed old grief, the daily round made me petulant.  The puppy, unlike cats or kittens, wanted my attention all the time. When I walked around the yard, she’d stick to my heel, staring up at me as if I was supposed to do something.   My cats had always glided slightly behind or to the side, with interest but no agenda.   
    When I was weeding, she’d leap onto my favorite flowers, crushing them.  If I stood up she ran in circles around my legs, tripping me.  I muttered a lot, spoke sharply to her when she whined to go out while I was writing.  I didn’t want to go out.  Didn’t I ever get what I wanted?   She’d roll around on the floor with limitless delight, as if she was getting all her fun by stealing mine. More anger, more sorrow, wheeled through my veins. I was a feeling machine, unable to stop the wheels of emotion from churning out this crap.
    In spite of all that, I didn’t want to let Steve down.  He was clearly besotted with the puppy and doing everything he could to make it easy for me. And she was good for him, helping him to relax and show his playful, goofy side. I couldn’t mess that up for him. 
    I managed for a few days.  Then, one more piece than I could manage was added to the mix.  
   I’d been keeping Photon inside, afraid he’d run away, but  one morning  he darted out across the yard before I even saw him stalking the door.  The puppy was busy with a bucket and didn’t see him.  I went to the vegetable garden to weed.  
   Soon, Photon came strolling back, and this time the puppy saw him. Suddenly she became a different kind of creature altogether.  She lifted her head, did a classic point position, and went after Photon, charging with purpose.  She’d found her inner predator. 
    Photon took a quick glance, puffed up and was off like a shot, running into the scrubby woods surrounding our yard.  
   I ran after them both, yelling at the puppy to stop, heel, sit, down.  Nightmare scenarios rose in me.  The dog would trap the cat, and hurt him, or even kill him, and I’d lose my cat to the damn thing I never wanted in the first place.  
    “Listen to me you little shit,”  I screamed.  “Leave the cat alone!  Leave him alone!” She paid no attention and that enraged me.  Dogs were supposed to be obedient. 
    I scrambled through the brush in time to see Photon shoot up a tree.  I made a dive and grabbed the puppy by her collar.  She yipped once and twisted around to get out of my grasp.  
     “No,”  I shrieked.  “No.  Don’t eat the cat.  No.”
     I pulled her up and brought her back into the house, put her in her crate and closed the door.   Then, shaking with anger, I went back outside to see about Photon.   Again I pushed through brush to where he sat on a limb, hunched up, his fur puffy and his aspect disgruntled.   
     “You can come down now,”  I told him.  “I put the dog away.”
      He didn’t move.     
     “You want to stay in the tree?”  I asked him.
    He squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. I left him there, knowing he could get down when he wanted to, but I felt awful.
     When Steve came home I told him about it.  “Photon’ll get used to it,”  he said reasonably.  “And the puppy will learn not to chase him.”
    “She went after him,” I insisted.  “Not playing.  Like she wanted to kill him.”
   “She’s a puppy,”  Steve said.
   “She’ll be a dog,”  I pointed out. “She’ll get big and kill my cat and I won’t be able to stop her.”   And I burst into tears.  I sat down on the kitchen floor and wept as if my heart was breaking.       
    Steve sat down next to me and silently patted my shoulder, looking worried. His wife was cracking up, over a puppy.  
    But by now he knew it was more than that, and so did I.  As a child, I’d  had the burden of a grandfather who singled me out as his caretaker, and used his neediness to abuse me.  I knew too well what it felt like to be trapped and helpless, to be prey.  The possibility of that happening to my cat was too much for me. 

Don't mess with me

      In case you think that sounds totally bonkers, it's actually pretty common with survivors of any violence.  It's called a trigger event. Just as memories both good and bad recur with the right physical cue, old trauma is sometimes resurrected by triggers, some of them so out of left field you don't immediately connect them to the actual memory.  War veterans report them happening from sounds, smells, certain angles of light.  I had survived the domestic wars, and it seemed my old battle wounds were kicking up.  From a puppy.
     Steve’s response was typical of him.  He made a decision to protect what he loved, and acted on it.   I got up the next morning to find him dismantling the crate.  When I asked what he was doing, he said he was taking the puppy back.
    “Back?” I asked, not getting it.
    “Back to Bill.”
    “But  - you can’t.”
    “Yes, I can.  I’ll tell him you’re allergic.  This can’t go on.”
    “No,”  I protested.  “I’ll get over it.  Just – I’ll get over it.”
     He kept at what he was doing.  When he decides a course of action

, his energy is so positive there’s really no denying it.  In fact, you don’t want to, because what he’s doing seems so right.  
    “The dog is triggering you,”  he said.  “I’m not sure why, but it’s wrong for you to feel so bad. I won't let it happen.  She’s going back.”
     I was stunned.  I believe it was the first time anyone had so consciously considered my well being above their own desires. It was such an unusual experience, I had no idea how to respond, so I said nothing.
     And Steve, looking forlorn but determined, brought the puppy back to Bill.
       
      You can find more of my writing at my website, wildreads.com.

COMFORT FOOD
No recipe today, because this is a sad part of the story, and I can’t eat when I’m sad.   However, if you feel the need of comfort food, let me suggest the following:
Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwich - classic, when it calls up memories of the good parts of childhood.
Peanut Butter and Fluffernutter sandwich - even more classic, and best served on white bread for full effect.  Nobody worried about that kind of thing when I was growing up.
Peanut Butter and Banana slices on toast - the healthy version of PB&J, especially if you use whole wheat bread and organic bananas.  

Chicken noodle soup - Campbells, from a can, with saltine crackers.  Do I need to explain? 

LIKE CATS AND DOGS

Once she was a puppy

          Daily bread, daily dogs and cats, and daily living

    Steve and I got married shortly after we moved in to our new house, going on the theory that if we could survive building together, we could probably manage marriage.  So far, it’s working out nicely.  

    Then, of course, Steve started pining for a dog, and I chose the little black lab, daughter to Gandalf and Arwen, at Bill West’s house.  Or she chose me.  Either way, the day we brought her home, I got my first lesson in how to speak dog, for native cat speakers.  

     We hadn’t named her, because it takes time for an animal to tell you its name, so she was still just Puppy.  We brought her into our living room, put her down and let her sniff about. We watched, as she wagged her tail at pretty much everything.

     Before long, our three year old cat, Photon, entered the room. He’s one of a series of black cats who have strolled gracefully through my life.  In fact, I’ve always made room for at least one black cat in my home, because they’re often last to be chosen at the shelter, and first to be used abusively in the world, which is sad.  But right now, we really wanted him to keep a low profile.  Clearly, he had different ideas.

   “I thought you put him in the Circus room,”  Steve said nervously, using our name for the guest bedroom, decorated in homage to the circus house.

   “I did.  He got out,” I answered just as nervously. I wanted to get used to the puppy before I dealt with the cat’s reaction, because I’m a little, well, let’s call it neurotic, about protecting my cats.  But we’d done some work to prep him, bringing home doggie smells on a towel and so on. Maybe, I thought, it would be okay.  

     It wasn’t.   

    Photon padded over, made his trilling noise of greeting, then stopped and stared at the new creature in his house.  The puppy turned her eager face to him.  Photon glared. The puppy wagged her tail so hard her whole back end went into motion.  Photon started his own tail flicking back and forth.  

    They stood that way for a moment, two small black animals, both of them wagging their tails, mirror images of each other.  Only, they each meant something very different by the gesture.

     Puppy, seeing a small furry black animal whose tail waved back and forth, did her play bow, then made a puppy leap. Photon, seeing an animal that wagged its tail and leaped, pushed out the ten tiny razors he kept in his paws for just such occasions, and used them.  

    In the flying fur and yelps that followed, Steve and I frantically sorted out bodies, each of us retreating to our side of the living room with an animal in our arms. Suddenly, I felt myself burning with fury, beyond all proportion to the situation.

   “Watch your dog,” I hissed, hanging on to the cat. “She attacked my cat.” 

   “Keep your cat back, before she hurts my dog,” he growled back, holding the puppy.

   The dog licked Steve. The cat settled into a nervous purr in my arms. Steve and I examined our animals for wounds, found none, and exchanged disapproving glances.

   I sniffed. “I’ll take Photon back to the Circus Room.”

  “Close the door this time,” he called after me as I went.  

    

     I sat with Photon on the bed, and though he returned very quickly to trilling and purring, I was surprised at the emotions roiling around in me.  

    I checked in with myself, and found simmering anger, that this interloper had disturbed my cat’s equilibrium.  And how come Puppy got to take over the house, while we had to retreat?  Also, quite unexpectedly, I was afraid.  What if Photon got mad and ran away?  And Puppy would soon be really big, if her 120 pound father was any indication of her ultimate size.  What if - what if she squished the cat?  Or ate it? 

    My rational brain, my adult self, knew none of this was likely, but apparently the puppy had reached in and triggered the lock on a suitcase full of tricky old emotions.

    I shouldn’t have been surprised.  There are almost always more tricky emotions than we want to acknowledge laying in wait for us, and animals, speaking to our wilder selves, often make them visible.  Though Western thought likes to portray humans as above all that, we’re not. We relate to animals in visceral ways, not always able to articulate why we’re moved by the flight of the heron overhead, or drawn to the strange antics of squirrels in the park.  Nonhuman animals hold up a mirror to our souls, teaching us who we really are.  They’re incredibly generous that way, and we’d be wise to pay more attention to their lessons instead of texting so much.

    Cats and dogs, who live in close association with us, have also been burdened with a bunch of cultural accretions.  In our minds, they’re bound up with gender metaphors, cats standing for women and dogs for men.  

      You know what I mean. There’s that obvious reference to female anatomy associated with cats, and the way we call some men hound dogs. We also tend to privilege each along gender lines, seeing dogs as hard working, loyal and trustworthy, while cats are tricky, unpredictable, unaffectionate, or even evil.  In Europe in the middle ages, the new religion of Catholicism went through village after village, burning even more cats than women because they were associated with goddess worship, and female witches.  In fact, they burned so many cats the species almost went extinct.  But then, the rat population grew, and the plague killed more than half the human population as well.   

     Sometimes, I imagine the ghosts of those burned cats sitting and licking their paws, saying ‘you should have been nice to us.’

    Sadly, that legacy continues.  A few years ago I heard a news story about a woman whose black cat was stolen by some local boys, tied to the end of their truck and dragged down a road until it died.  She tried to prosecute them, but she lived in an area of Pennsylvania that still had a law on the books which said it was okay to kill black cats, because they were the familiar of the witch. 

Photon, considering options

      Dogs get abused, too, in horrible ways, but the prevalent metaphor we impose on each is different, and I naturally identified with cats at least partly because of that.  I’m independent, contemplative, and I like a lot of grooming. The main character in one of my novel series is a woman named Jaguar Addams, and I’ll admit she’s a little tricky.  

    Essentially, I understand cats.  Dogs were a new species, with a new language.  And suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn it.

     But that was ridiculous.  Puppies are cute and cuddly, loved by millions of people. My anger, my fear, must indicate something terribly wrong with me, and I better fix it before the Cute Police found out. As I sat with Photon in the Circus room, I delved deeper into the contents of my emotional suitcase.  

    Of course, there was my mother’s smoldering resentment of the family dog which she didn’t like but had to care for, and my father’s tendency to give it more affection than he ever showed me.  There was my own resistance to a creature that was so - so servile and dependent.  Cats rule, and dogs serve, right?   Yet, you have to take care of dogs.  Their servility becomes your responsibility.  The co-existence of human and cat was much more comfortable to me.  

     I tentatively touched old wounds and persistent attitudes, aware of how many of them were given to me rather than chosen. Digging even deeper, I found that even my disdain for dog’s servility was the legacy of my mother’s ambivalence toward dependents and dependency.  And all that, from a puppy. Could I really be that weird?   

    I hoped not.  I mean, it was embarrassing to have deep issues about dogs. I decided my best move was to ignore it, try to be normal, and move on. 

   I stood and put my smile on. I left Photon purring with contentment on the bed, and went back downstairs, closing the door firmly behind me.  

     If you want to read some of my strange adventures with birds, you’ll find Saving Eagle Mitch: One Good Deed in a Wicked World, and Feathers of Hope, on Amazon.   And here’s a sustaining recipe for those times when you face your own emotional issues.  

HAMMING IT UP

 This is an easy one.  Very few ingredients, and if it’s a cold day, it’ll warm up the house.  Of course, you can do it without the bourbon, or you can change up the brown sugar for maple syrup, because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!

This pig is drunk

Ingredients

1 ham, shank or butt portion, about 10 pounds

1/2 cup bourbon

3 1/2 cups apple cider

1/2 cup brown sugar

Put the bourbon, cider, and brown sugar in a small pot and stir it up.  Turn the heat to high and let it come to a boil.  Turn it down to medium and let it simmer for about five or ten minutes, to burn off the alcohol and mellow the flavors.  Heat mellows us all,  If you’re from the Northeast, surely you know that.

Score the ham to your preference (I don’t do diamonds, just slashes) put it in a roasting pan, its primary meat side down, and pour the liquid over it.  Speaking with it courteously, tell it  you’re now putting it in an oven preheated to 450 degrees.

But as soon as it’s in, turn the heat down to 300 degrees.  The ham won’t mind. Let it cook without disturbance for two to three hours at this low temp, or until the internal temperature reaches a comfortable 140 degrees. 

Serve with mashed potatoes and corn, or baked potatoes and brussell sprouts, or just with your own good will.  

SINGING STARS, LAUGHING EARTH

Daily bread, daily cats and dogs, and daily living

Luna can howl, too

   Today, the cats are glaring at me.  Cricket, our black cat, wants to know why all that SNOW is still out there. Don’t I realize she doesn’t like walking on it? Can’t I get rid of it?  Chaco resents that I’m keeping her out of the cellar, where strange men are Doing Things to that big box we call a furnace.  She feels she should go have a look inside it, and I’m not letting her.

“Relax, girls,” I tell them. “Have some catnip.”  

      I wouldn’t mind having some myself.  We were without our heat for over a week, getting by on spaceheaters and pretty damn glad we put a fireplace in, because our odd geothermal/radiant floor system went kaplooey.  That, I think, is the technical term.  

     It was the only part of building the house that didn’t go well, and we knew it would have to be replaced, but knowledge is just mental prep.  It doesn’t stop you from feeling what you feel.

    For us, this last week or so, what we felt was cold.  It reminded me of the days when we were building here.  And I do mean building, because we not only took a chance on buying the land, we decided to be General Contractors, taking an active part. We hired out what we couldn’t do, and Steve, very organized about it all, had us interview three of each - three architects, three well guys, and so on - then choose the ones that best met our needs.  It was a good plan.  It only fell down on the geothermal unit, because we couldn’t find three of those, and the one we did find turned out to be a schmuck.  Again, that’s the technical term.

    Other than that, building was a lot more straightforward than either of us thought it would be.  This isn’t to say it was easy. No, no.  It was work that took all our spare time and obsessive qualities for about a year.  There were good days, bad days, and some days that were just interesting.  

    A good day was when the footings were put in, but before the cement was poured, when I went around to the part of the earth that would hold our home, and placed pollen, sage, feathers, and some special stones in the corners and the center, thanking the land we’d rest on, and opening a conversation with it.    

Really.  The sky does this sometimes

    An interesting day was when I was working outside, clearing brush, and one of our new neighbors, Mitch, stopped as he passed to welcome us to the neighborhood.  “You’re gonna love it here,” he said with great enthusiasm.  “I got an explosive license!”

     Later, I found out that meant he did big firework displays every fourth of July. He took me for a tour of his basement to show me the stacks and stacks of them, but when he lit a cigarette, I gracefully and quickly withdrew.  

     A bad day was when the foundation guys were late with the pouring, and with winter coming on, we were getting a bit hysterical about it all.  That evening I called the guy and sobbed, “I want you to know I wake up crying every night.  And I want you to wake up every night, thinking about me crying.”

     Apparently, tears are what big construction guys fear most, because it was done the next day, and our framers were out framing in one of the worst snowstorms of the year.

    A really interesting day was when we entered the building to see all the dry wall up, and Steve said to me, “We’ll prime it today, and finish the painting tomorrow.”  He is the ultimate optimist.

    Another good day - when the well was sunk, and water gushed from the ground in a marvelous torrent.  I thought, oddly, of the day my water broke and I went into labor.  

   Another good day - when I finally finished the damn insulation  (I was known as The Bat Queen, because it was my job to install all the insulting bats).  On that day, before the drywall went up, I placed many magic objects behind the insulation, including copies of my son’s early writing and drawings, copies of my novels, a newspaper, a magazine my husband was published in.  And I wrote praise and blessings on the walls behind the insulation.

     In looking back, there were clearly more good days than bad, which wasn’t true of our house hunting experience.  Go figure.  Maybe we’re just karmically marked as DIY folks.  Or because we’re writers, our inherent attitude is, ‘if it doesn’t exist, we’ll just have to create it.”   Actually, I wrote my first novel because I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read.  

    But no, it wasn’t easy.  It was down and dirty work, and after a year of it I longed to put my girl clothes back on and go get a manicure.  But I think we do ourselves a grave injustice when we believe just because something is difficult, it’s not right, looking to  ‘easy’ as a sign that we’re on the right track.  Nor do I think the opposite is true.  Like a good Italian who always adds and never subtracts, I think both are true.  It’s right when it’s meaningful, and sometimes getting to meaningful is hard work, but generally you also have a sense that the work is good. That you’ve chosen well, if not wisely.  And here, finally, is what told me that.  

    In November, after we’d put in the well and septic, but still hadn’t broken ground for the house, a Celestial event occurred - The annual Leonid meteor shower.  Astronomers said it was to be one of the best ever, and I decided to leave my small house in the city and go watch it on the hill. That meant waking up at around 3 am on a cold night, but there are no streetlights on the hill, and it’s far enough away from the city that we get the best view of the stars.

     When I arrived at our land, I bundled up good in sweater, coat, and blanket, and sat on the hood of my car (still warm), looking up.

     I’d anticipated a bunch of shooting stars, but what I got would certainly give Mitch’s explosive license some pretty stiff competition.  Discs of fires, with sizzling tails danced across the darkling plain.  Stars poured down like discarded petals of flowers in the wind. Tiny drops of light burst out and disappeared.  And in the distance, from different spots on the hill, I heard human voices, gasping, calling out, ‘Aaah!”  

    This was more than a meteor shower.  It was a conversation, between the children of the earth, and their progenitors, the stars. In it,  I recognized something - that I was here not just to build a house, but also to touch my origins, and be touched by them, with stardust shivering down the sky toward my new home.

     Dawn began to rise in the east, but in the still dark western sky, stars continued to fling themselves toward earth, as if they yearned for us the way we yearn for them.  Then, as if I hadn’t had enough magic already, the coyotes started to howl.      

    If you’ve never heard coyotes, you should know that their cries seem to contain both wild laughter and exigent longing.  You can’t help but think of drunk old men, and the call of the goddess at the same time. Those who know the language can interpret: Someone caught a bunny?  Coyote pups want their pack?  I’m not conversant, so what I heard was a reminder.  I’m made of stardust, and, as the bible says, an earthling of the earth. I’m part of each, where I belong.   

     Humans absorb wisdom and mystery through their skin and senses, and it lives in us in wordless ways.  The land shapes us, body and soul.  The song of the coyotes, the dance of the meteors,my neighbor’s responses, marked me that night, and claimed me for this place where I’d chop wood, gather water, and chat with stars.   

     Later, when other canids came into my life, I’d have to remember that.  I’d long been friends with felines, but soon the canids would put me on notice that I still had more to learn. Next time, let’s go back to my dog, shall we?

     You can find out more about my novels on my website, wildreads.com.  And here’s a recipe that’s both grounded, and sparkly.  

STARS AND PLANETS FRUIT SALAD

During the worst part of the heat crisis in my house, my friends Amy Atkins and Mary Browne, two amazing women, invited me for a lunch which they prepared.  It was elegant, immensely tasty, and just what I needed - to have someone else cook for me.  Here’s what starfruit look like, beautiful as the Leonids.

These starfruit SING!

Ingredients

thin, broad slices of mango,
papaya, and blood oranges

Starfruit slices

Some raspberries

Dressing

1/2 cup pomegranate juice

1/4 cup pineapple juice

4 tbsp honey

3/4 cup raspberry vinaigrette dressing

Simmer the dressing briefly over medium heat (about five minutes). You can add other fruits as you prefer, and if you like heat in your salad, toss in some cayenne pepper or tabasco because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!
 

DREAM HOUSE

     Daily bread, daily dogs and cats, and daily living

 

Luna Loves Bread

      Some of the best parts of my life have happened in spite of my resistant, or by accident.  For instance, dogs.  And for instance, building a house, which happened by accident.  Or, more accurately, by a series of misadventures.  
     When Steve and I got engaged and he decided to move from Connecticut to upstate New York, we started looking for a house to buy.  We wanted a few acres, and didn’t mind a fixer-upper, so when I saw an ad for a 250 year old house with six acres, not too far from where I was teaching, I made an appointment to go view it.

     The night before I went, I had a dream - a very happy dream - about an area of scattered houses with lots of space between, but all connected by intricate paths through woods and over open meadows. Each house was different, some old and some new.  I saw it all from above, and liked what I saw.   

     The next morning, as I drove up the winding road toward our possible home, I kept seeing houses I’d seen in my dream.  Later, when I took a friend to look at it, she mused, “Wow.  This is weird. I’ve dreamt about this place.” 

     The land of dreams.  As a writer, I always felt I belonged just there.  So surely this must be my dream house, right?

     When I got to the door of the plain white farmhouse with a big old Maple tree in front, I was greeted by two women, mother and daughter, one in her sixties, and one in her eighties.  They were only the second family to live here in all of its 250 years. They’d bought it many years ago, when they worked in their family circus.  

    That’s no metaphor.Their family owned a small circus, and the two women once worked as tiger tamers and horse trainers. From that moment on, we referred to the place as The Circus House, and the name was entirely appropriate.

     As it turned out, they’d added six rooms to house the circus people. You know - the contortionist’s room, the trapeze room, etcetera. Unfortunately,  the circus went bust before they finished, so the top floor was just framing, with fireplaces and wiring that was nowhere near code.  When our inspector came to look at it, he showed me how he could bounce on the roof like a trampoline act, and how the septic system was oozing out the lawn, and how the three different heating systems (oil, electric, and gas) weren’t working. My Dream House was a nightmare.

    Still, we were besotted, and willing to work, so we made a lowball offer. It was rejected. The circus ladies would accept nothing under full asking price, and if we combined that with repairs, we’d be joining the Circus of the Damned. 

     We walked away, but the nightmare continued. For the next year every attempt we made to buy a house led to strangely disastrous results.  One ended with the owner screaming at me for reasons I never  understood. Then there was the house with dead mice in the hot tub, the one with water pouring out the electrical fixtures, and the houses that seemed perfect, except they were right next to a railroad track, or had an electrical tower in the front yard.  And finally, there was the beautiful post and beam.   

      It was just down the road from the Circus House, and within budget. Everything looked solid and secure, until our inspector said the well might be running dry.  He suggested we get a well guy to test it, and we did. 

    The date we set for the test was September 12th, and the year was 2001.

    Yes.  Really.  The day after the towers fell.  

    So imagine me, on the day after 9/11, gearing up for a well inspection.  I’d spent the previous day and night with my students on UAlbany’s campus, watching in horror as the towers fell, not sure if the attacks were going to get worse.  Then, first thing the next morning, I put on my leather jacket, my best sunglasses and boots, and made my way up the hill under a silent sky, to meet with a well inspector.  I had to be tough, prepared to meet men who might lie or bully me.  I had to not think about how the world was falling apart.

     As I pulled in the driveway, the home owner and well inspector were at the well.  I got out of my car and walked tall.  When I got to them, before I could say a word, three gunshots rang out.  

     I stood very still.  Nothing else happened, and I wasn’t dead.  I pulled my shades down and stared at the owner.  “Who’s he shooting at?” I asked mildly.

     The owner got nervous.  “That’s just my neighbor,” he said. “He likes to pop bunnies in his garden.  But don’t worry.  He’s got cataracts and can’t see anyway.”

     Right.  And that’s a good thing? 

     As it turned out, the well was no good, and the owner wouldn’t negotiate, but if he had, I didn’t want to live next door to a blind bunny popper.  The year had enough violence in it already.  

      So again, we walked away and, and for a while, we just gave up.  Even our realtor suggested we should, um, ‘take a break.‘   Then, after a while, Steve and I talked about maybe sorta kinda looking at land. Not that we meant it or anything, but we had to live somewhere. I made appointments to view three parcels. The first was too expensive. The second was too small.  

      But the third one - ah, the third one. 

      I arranged to meet Bill West at his house, a log cabin that belonged to his family.  He was a tall, rugged man dressed in the flannel and workboots common to the area, and he had the country friendly attitude that was also normal here.  He took me down the road to walk the boundaries of the land, which was dry on top, a bit boggy behind, and wooded all around with about a hundred acres that he owned, and used mostly for hunting during deer season. From where the house would sit, I could peer out over the Heldeberg escarpment.  An old Shagbark Hickory was centrally placed in what might be the back yard. I liked it. When we were done walking around, we stood on the road and talked.   

     As we did, a car went by, and Bill shook his head.  “Dammit,” he said.  “That’s the third car in an hour.  Traffic around here is getting heavy.”

     I smiled. That was just what I needed to hear. 

    There were good reasons I wanted to live on the hill.  But building a house?  Really?   Was I ready for that?  Did I have a clue?  Not at all.  But I’ve learned that when you follow your dreams, generally the first stop along the way is a place called Trouble. 

      Fortunately, Steve is the kind of guy who swore he would have gotten me off the Titanic alive, and I believed him.  He always had a plan.  So we strapped our seatbelts on, and got ready for the ride.  This land was ours.

    You can read a fictionalized version of The Circus House in my novel, Something Unpredictable, an environmental romantic comedy, with turtles.     

    Accidental Bread

    I made this bread by accident.  The original recipe was for rosemary and olive oil, which you can substitute because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!  However, I was out of olive oil, so I used a really good truffle oil instead.  Now, it's one of my favorites.  

You’ll need to make a starter - the kind called biga.  Don’t be afraid.  It won’t hurt you.  But  make it at least a day ahead, or even up to a week.  The longer it sits, the more flavor it develops.

Biga

Shhhh.  It's resting

2/3 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/3 cup flour  (I use organic bread flour. You can use all-purpose unbleached flour, or a mix of white and whole wheat.)

Mix all this together until a dough forms, knead it a little bit, and put the dough in a covered container.  Let it sit at room temperature for an hour, then refrigerate it for at least overnight, and up to a few days, until you’re ready to use it.  

Bread Dough

1 1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon instant yeast

3 1/4 cups flour (again, all purpose or bread flour, and you can mix in some whole wheat, but you may have to add more water if you do.)

1/3 cup Truffle Oil  (Or mix truffle and olive oil if you prefer)

1 tablespoon fresh finely chopped rosemary

2 teaspoons sea salt.

And a teaspoon of pepper won't hurt it at all.

Take the biga out of the fridge and put a cup of it in a Big mixing bowl (A really biga mixing bowl.  Ha!  Get it?)  Pour the water over it and break it up with a spatula.  Add in everything else, and if you’re mixing by hand, get to it!  If you’re using a mixer, use the dough hook, and mix it on medium until it’s silky, smooth, and elastic - about 10 minutes.

NOTE:  If you’ve never made bread before, the idea is to knead and pummell and flop it, stretch and mush it and stretch it again and smack it around some more until the dough is elastic, silky and smooth, holding together welll.  If you want, you can buy bread dough at the store and just feel it, so you’ll know the right texture of it all.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl or container and cover it, leave it to rise at room temp until it’s doubled in volume.  That’ll be an hour or two, so you can go write something while the dough does its thing.   

When it’s risen sufficiently, divide the dough into two loaves and shape each into a log about a foot long.  Get a piece of parchment paper or a cookie tray and lightly oil it, dust it with cornmeal, and put the dough on it.  Cover lightly with plastic wrap or a clean dishtowel  (if you don’t have a clean dishtowel, go wash one, and explain to your mother, not me, why you had to do that.)

Let the logs rise at room temp for about an hour.  While they’re rising, heat up your oven to WAY HIGH.  I mean, 500 degrees.   If you have a baking stone put it in the oven. 

When the dough is risen and the oven’s really hot, slide the loaves in, turn the heat down to 400, and close the oven door.  

(Or, if you want a thicker, crunchier crust, put a cast iron fry pan on the oven floor and drop in some ice cubes just before you put the bread in to cook.  The steam does something to the crust.  Don’t ask me to explain what.  I can’t. )

Bake until the bread is nicely browned, and sounds hollow when tapped.  Don’t let it burn, for pity’s sake.  Not after all this work.    

When you take it out of the oven, the smell will be rich as all our lives should be, and you’ll be tempted to cut into it right away.  Let it rest for at least 10 to fifteen minutes.  It’ll  cut better, and be just the right temperature for eating all of it.     

THIS ONE

A writer’s daily bread, daily dogs and cats, and daily living.   

Luna is home on the hill

      This is a new blog, so let’s keep it simple.  Let’s start with the dogs.  

     Wait.  Forget simple.  We nurture the illusion that dogs are simple creatures, hoping to satisfy our own yearning for simplicity, but they’re actually not, and neither is our relationship with them.  At least, mine isn’t.  

    I didn’t want a dog. In fact, I didn’t like dogs.  I grew up with an unneutered male beagle named Prince, pride and joy of my father, a hunter and fly fisher.  For my mother, Prince was the cross she had to bear because she was raised in an Italian household that never never let furred creatures enter the house. For my part, by the time I knew Prince he was not at all cute or cuddly.  In fact, he was sausage shaped, smelly, and his amorous yearnings for girl dogs in the neighborhood was a constant embarrassment.  Between that and my mother’s muttered Italian imprecations about him, I’d learned that dogs were a lot more trouble than they were worth.  

     Perhaps in reaction to all that, as an adult I became a confirmed cat lover, taking a variety of interesting felines into my life.  Cats were easy, graceful, meditative and eccentric enough to be amusing.  Despite common belief to the contrary, my cats were always affectionate and responsive to their human companions, each in their own way.   

     However, shortly after my husband Steve and I moved into the house we’d built, I caught him sighing over doggie ads on the internet.  

Doesn't need to be walked

    “Her name is Lucy,” he muttered, as he pointed to a blue eyed lab mix who stared soulfully out from the screen.  He’d once had a dog named Lucy - Well, Lucifer, really.  A strange mid-sized brown dog who bounced up and down relentlessly.  He’d also had a big, docile black lab called Moo.  And a few insane Westies.  In fact, he’d had dogs all his life, and now that we had land and a house, he was missing them.  

      “This is important to you, isn’t it?” I asked.

      He turned stoic, shook his head. “You don’t like dogs,” he replied.  “I’m okay without one.”

      Yeah.  Right.  I took a wait and see attitude, and when I found him continuing to stare at dog ads the next night, and the one following, and the one after that, I caved. After all, part of our wedding vows, which I wrote, said that I’d consider his joy as I did my own.  That’s the problem with being a writer.  You put it in print, and then you have to live it.

     “Maybe we should seriously consider this,” I said.  “Like, pick one and go see it.  How about that Lucy dog?”

      If Steve was a dog, his tail would have started thumping.  He returned to that website, only to find that Lucy was already gone.  She’d found her humans.  But for us, the search was officially on.  We browsed websites, considered breeds and needs.  

    “How about a nice little Papillon?” I said.

     Steve scowled.  “That’s not really a dog, is it?” he said disdainfully.  

    “It’s a little dog, for a small woman who doesn’t want a major appliance on legs,” I noted.  I’m only five feet tall, and I don’t weigh that much, so I was hoping for an animal I could manage without further physical training.  

   “We’re out in the country,” he said.  “We should give a home to a dog that needs to, you know, run and jump in water and stuff.”

     I left him to seek doggie perfection, and in the meantime, I started my own research going.  I learned that pit bulls are actually quite lovely, if they’re trained.  Also that little dogs can be yippie, and big dogs droolly.  That Border Collies need a job and Vischlas have to run almost constantly.  That there were monks in New York State who bred the best German Shepherds going, while living next to nuns who made the best cheesecakes.  They kept the puppies tied to them all day, petting them and handling them gently from birth so they’d be incredibly in tune with their humans.  

      When I told my friend Rachel about this, she said, “Now there’s a tough job.  I can just see it.  ‘Oh, Sister Marie, I had such a hard day playing with puppies.  I need cheesecake.’”

       She had a point.  Anyway, there was a two year waiting list for those dogs, and they cost a hefty chunk of cash.  We returned to scouring rescue sites, debating the pros and cons of breeds versus mutts, puppies versus grown dogs, and so on.  Since our journey from dating to marriage took more than five years, and our house-getting project about two, I fully expected we’d be at least another year picking a dog.  

      But then, fate intervened. Bill, our neighbor down the road and the man we bought our land from, called to let us know his two black labs, Gandalf and Arwen (yes, really), had produced a litter.  Were we interested? We told him we’d think about it.  At least we’d come see them. 

     We knew Gandalf well.  He weighed in at about 120, a big, loping, creature who had a regular routine of walking about to see the neighbors.  He stopped by occasionally to say hello, get a treat, and poop in the yard.  Arwen, smaller and sweet natured, didn’t travel, but I’d met her at times when I went to see Bill about the land buying process.   

      “Well?” I  asked Steve. “What do you think?”

      “They’re puppies. They’ll be cute. If I see them, I might just get one,” he pointed out. “You sure you’re ready?” 

      I wondered if this was anywhere near what people felt when they were deciding whether or not to have a baby.  My own son was just suddenly there, and I’m glad I did it that way because if I had to think about the ramifications, I might not have that huge piece of joy in my life.  But a dog?  In fact, that might be harder.

       I made a smile.  “Sure,” I said.  “Let’s go see them.”

     “Puppies,” he muttered, and I became aware that his brain had just turned to mush.  

      Bill came outside, and he and Steve started talking particulars about the black balls of fur and  motion that were rolling about.  I never claimed to be psychic, but it was clear to me that one of them was going to be ours.

     I started my own process going, hoping to retain the only control left to me.  I’d read that you don’t want the first dog that runs to you, because that one is probably dominant.  Nor do you want the one that runs away, because it might be too anxious.  So I moved among the puppies, and found one that was sitting, calm and alert, looking around.  When I approached her, she looked up at me and stood, moving toward me, her back end waggling, though her face remained serious and intent. I picked her up and held her.  She sat in my arms, still calm and alert, surveying the scene.  After a while she turned to me.  “So we’ve got that settled,” she seemed to say. “What’s next?”

      Much to my surprise, my connection with her was immediate and complete.  Maybe because we were the only two females in a pack of males, or maybe because Karma will always bite you in the rear, I knew she was right.  Though I still didn’t like dogs, something important had been wordlessly settled between us.  I couldn’t name the feeling at the time, but later I would recognize it as this:  She has been waiting for me.  I have been waiting for her.  And now, we've found each other.  We have places to go together.  Things to learn together.  Though I’m not sure I'm ready for any of that, we belong to each other.  

    I carried her over to Bill and Steve, who were rollicking with one of the bigger male puppies.  “This one,” I said, nodding at the puppy.

       Bill blinked at me. Steve blinked at me. 

     “This one,” I said again. “We’ll take this one.”

      And so it was that I chose my first dog.  

     But how I got to a place where I’d be choosing a dog is another story.  It has to do with seeking your Dream House, and all the obstacles you meet along the way.  It has to do with the way bliss and growth is often preceded by obstacles that force you to run true to yourself, regardless of your will.      

    Before I continue with the strange places this puppy led me, I suppose my next blog should tell you how I got the house that got me a dog.  And in case you’re hungry while you’re waiting, here’s food that says ‘home’ to me.

     If you want something to read while you eat, my novels and nonfiction books are available on Amazon.

     SIMPLE SAUCE AND MEATBALLS

     Simple?  Sort of.  It’s like dogs - externally simple, but the chemistry is incredibly complex, with lots of transformations necessary to make your mouth say the simple word ‘yum.’  Or, if you’re French, ‘miam.’  Or if you’re Italian, ‘Mangia Buona!’  Fortunately, the making only takes good ingredients, time, and love, so consider NOT picking up that jar of store bought, and instead making your own.   

    My sauce, which you’ll not has no onions or oregano, is from my Abruzzi mother and grandmother, and creates the aroma of their houses, so it’s home base to me.  But sauce is infinitely variable, and you should feel free to try it without the sausage, or use just ground beef instead of meatballs (my husband’s preference) or try different herbs, because you know the rule:  PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD!  

MEATBALLS

1 pound ground beef

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste (In my house, we always tasted the meatballs when raw.  If you’re not comfortable with that, don’t do it.  Just use this measurement.)

2 cloves garlic, grated or put through a garlic press

About a teaspoon of crushed dried basil

About 1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs

About 1/2 cup freshly grated Locatelli Romano pecorino cheese (use the good stuff!  It makes a difference!)

1 egg

Get all this in a bowl and mush it together with your hands.  That’s right.  Your HANDS.  They’re the cooks best tools.  If you need to, add more breadcrumbs to make it hold together.

Roll the meat into balls, about 1 1/2 inches each.   Some people like bigger, some like smaller, so go with your preference on this one.  

Put them on a baking sheet, and bake in an oven at 350 degrees about 20 minutes.  Don’t overcook them, because they’ll also cook in the sauce.  

SAUCE

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 cloves garlic, grated or put through a press

About a tablespoon of dried basil, crushed in your hot little hands

3 jars crushed tomatoes, or tomato puree  (puree has no seeds, if that matters to you.)

2 really good sweet italian sausages (optional)

About a pound of either short ribs, or other beef ribs (optional)

The Meatballs

Maybe a cup or 2 cups of water

About 1/2 cup of  fresh Locatelli Romano pecorino cheese, grated.

Salt and pepper to taste

Simply Delicious

Heat up a really good sauce pot on the stove.  Add the olive oil and let it get to a sizzle.  Throw in the crushed basil.  Then toss in the sausage and the ribs, if you’re using them.  

Let them all dance around in the heat for a bit, then gradually pour in the crushed tomatoes or tomato puree, adding the water to keep it from getting too thick. (How thick is too thick?  Well, you want it to be a silky, viscous liquid rather than a pudding, or faux pudding.  Keep that in mind as you work, and adjust according to your own tastes. )  

Put the heat to medium-low.  

When it’s been simmering a bit, add the garlic, the meatballs, and then the cheese.  Turn the heat to LOW.  Let it simmer quietly, like it’s saying the rosary, for at least another hour.  Continue to visit it, stirring and testing.  You’ll know when it tastes right, the same way I knew the right puppy to pick.   Trust yourself.  (Besides, the worst that can happen is that it becomes compost, which will just feed the next batch of sauce. 

When it’s done, serve on your favorite pasta, and say THANKS!